1939 - Our Car Trip To Miami (Home Movie)
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- Опубліковано 10 вер 2024
- In B&W and Color. Originally titled "1300 Miles in 15 Minutes," this is an amateur travelogue by my grandfather Gus Martens. Sadly, the film's acetate has decomposed to the point that substantial portions may be difficult to watch, but I felt it was important to salvage as much of it as possible. There are definitely scenes of historical interest worth preserving, such as the car ferries crossing the Delaware River before bridge construction made them obsolete, the since-demolished Columbus Hotel of Miami, the replica galleon docked in Biscayne Bay and, of course, the vintage traffic (11:44). The 10-year old boy appearing in several scenes is my father, Warren, who recently passed away at the age of 83 . The initials "M.G.W." in the opening title are those of my grandparents Margaret & Gus, and Warren.
Gustave at the time was working as a field manager for Hoffman Beverages, and making business trips to Florida was a regular part of his job. He usually went by plane (an enviable job perk for anybody living in Queens back then) but for this particular trip in 1939 he took his wife and son along via auto. During their long drive down the eastern seaboard the family made stopovers in Washington, Mount Vernon, Charleston, Fort Sumter, and St. Augustine before reaching their final destination in Miami.
Since Grandpa was "Mr. Home Movie" to everyone who knew him back home, he certainly didn't want to return from exotic Florida without a picture show, or else an awful lot of people were going to be disappointed! Well, Grandpa certainly delivered.
Just try to imagine how this film originally looked when the colors were vivid and the details were crystal clear. Should you have any mouldering old movies in your basement that are worth keeping, please try to have them digitally transferred by a reputable service before it's too late.
And let me assure you - unlike the fake home movies appearing all over television commercials these days, the aging film effects seen here are 100% authentic!
Robert Martens
September, 2012
I am loving your grandfather’s home movies - bet he never knew a complete stranger would be enjoying his home movies during COVID 19. Thanks again for posting ❣️
I wished more people uploaded more vintage videos.
Thank you for sharing this great video. I grew up in Miami when it was beautiful and not crowded. This brough back many memories of when I was a child. Unfortunately Miami changed so much that we moved to North Carolina.
Sir im apart of the new generation in Miami (im 21) and im torn between if i should stay or go as well. I love this city, theres pros and cons between how it is versus how it is but i hope i can afford to stay.
@@kilroy4123 Get out while you can.
Well done, Sir! As a fellow film preservationist, I sincerely appreciate your efforts to preserve history.
I just found this video. Very well done; the captions and information were great. Loved every minute of it.
What a joy to watch! Loved the music, too.
Thanks for posting!
Can you imagine how hot it was in August in 1930 with no A/C?
Yep. It was pretty hot in the 50's too.🥵
What a treasure for your family...and a pleasure for the rest of us. You are to be commended for preserving this special film. Your grandfather would be very proud of you. As a person who wishes I had been born back in such a time...it was a very good trip to the past. Thanks for sharing this....
Oh, that there was such a time!
Ah, the family auto trip! Far more a big deal then than now. You always took pictures -- usually snap shots, developed by the drug store photo service and pasted into albums for safekeeping and future reference. This film is so typical of the era, it made me want to get in a time machine and go back there.
Your effort to save time is appreciated. Especially thanks to Gus.
I'm 17 this feels so amazing to see how a place looked years ago
This is so cool. My Dad would have been 11 at the time. He and his parents made road trips as far south as Virginia. They lived in Mahoning County Ohio. My Mom would have been 12. Her Dad took road trips to a whole new level, taking his family every summer to a different State by car. My Mom, her Brother, and parents saw places I could only dream of. But we did see the pictures. 😊
Thoroughly enjoyed this video! Thanks so much for sharing!
Very very nice!! I enjoyed this immensely!! I've been to al of the places you've mentioned, only decades later and lived in Miami in the 60's, to the 80's. 27 years. Thanks!
My grandmother Jessie Easton Walsh and my mom, Barbara Walsh, knew your relative Barbara E. Martens. I went to her house in Whitestone a couple of times in the early 1960s. I remember she had a cuckoo clock. She may have been my grandmother's piano teacher. I love these films. Tried leaving a comment on the other UA-cam site. Anyway, as a former tv news video librarian I really appreciate that someone took the time to convert these and post them. Thanks!
Funny how he thought royal palms were "coconut trees."
I grew up in Miami, and I recognized exactly one structure: Freedom Tower. I had no idea it was that old.
It's nice to know some parents took their kids on long trips and tried to make them appreciate America. When my dad was young, he was selfish and cynical. Not very involved with his family. He didn't mind spending money on golf, but we never got to see much of America.
Videos like this remind me that Miami was once a nice place. My the time I arrived there in '69, it was full of rude people, and it's much, much worse now than it was then. A real snake pit. Every single day, I thank God I was able to leave. I don't just mean I say I thank God. I literally thank him.
Very cool thanks!! The tower at the end to the right was originally completed in 1925 as the headquarters and printing facility for the newspaper "The Miami News" Then in the 1960s the government used it to process and document refugees from the Cuban Revolution and to provide medical and dental services for them, It's now called "The Freedom Tower"
Thanks to your Grandfather for this wonderful film. I have been going to Miami every year since 1962 . John in Chicago
Looking at the downtown Miami skyline at the end it's amazing how the courthouse and the Freedom Tower dominated the skyline.
Enjoyed your film - brings back memories - Thanks for sharing
Excellent! Thanks for uploading.
Amazing that skyline in 1930. I grew up in Miami in the 60s and the skyline grew from the 30s a lot. I went to my sons apartment in the Beach in 2024 and driving back to Miami I told how sorry I was that Miami now its just another scrappy Chicago skyline. No longer the beautiful tropical Miami I knew in the late 60s.
What a wonderful film! Excellent footage of a bygone era! 👍😊👏
Wonderful to see beautiful Miami. Thank you for uploading this history!
Lovely film . Thank You
We all are born, we all live and we all die. Such is life. Life is short. Don't waste one minute.
Truly a philosophy to live for!
Wonderful video of a Florida that no longer exists!
I wish i could've lived on different eras in Miami and seen the changes
lovely to see this, very nice of you to share;)
i like the colouring at end... quite beautiful.
Wow dude ! Miami back then . . . So beautiful
great film footage but may I suggest that you 86 the General Patton music. ....maybe something a little more soothing to share these old memories.
The young man had quite an adventure!
Nice video , thanks
What a cool movie, thank you for sharing it with us.
Brilliant Robert ......... another piece of history preserved!
this is amazing
Great piece, the funniest was seeing people in three piece suits and trench coats in the Florida and Miami heat. lol
And hats!
Thats real real cool! Thanks for sharing,sir!😁👍
Great movie! Thanks for sharing.
thanks for sharing
You're welcome!
Between two wars and a depression, dust-bowl, they still had fun.
Fantastic! thank u
great home movie,thanks for sharing.
12:13 There were no traffic lanes in Miami. Every man for himself.
Wow its like a timetrip
Excellant thanks for sharing .
Great video thank you for sharing God Bless....
TY for sharing!
Hello, I live in Miami.
Was the child I saw your grandfather? My father was born in 1928 and my mother in 1935. My mom was 4 years old when your grandfather took this trip. She passed away on January 10, 2020.
My father still alive age 93.
Thank you for sharing this.
The child is my father, Reverend Warren G. Martens 1929 - 2012.
Thanks for sharing...
Very cool video
👏👏👏👏👏 wonderful!
Thanks for posting . I was not born then.
Outstanding!
Ponce De Leon actually first landed a little down stream a ways near Melbourne Beach
Nice video but music was so annoyingly loud. Horns blaring too much, I just ended up muting the sound.
What time of year was it? It looked like April because there were leaves on the trees in DC. People were wearing coats there. What I found funny was people were wearing coats in Miami. That was cool. My how Miami has changed.
what happened to Philly..Baltimore..Raleigh and Jacksonville ?
I wish I could ask that question to my grandfather who made the movie, but he's been dead since 1977, and my father (the little boy in the movie) is gone too. I can only surmise that their time was limited (it was a business trip for Grandpa after all) so they could not have possibly squeezed all those other cities into the time they had available. But they did get to see Washington DC, Mount Vernon, Charleston and St. Augustine in addition to Miami. That must have been plenty enough for one long car trip back in the year 1939 when there was no Interstate system.
Very good.
Вот это качество съёмки 80 лет назад!!!
Where did you get the transfer done?
Aside from the jitter it looks great. Looks as though the base has shrunk. Was it done on a projector or a rank transfer. The rank type is more expensive but can handle the shrunk base better.
I'm not so good with the terminology, but I do remember the service saying that they used a "wet gate" to remove the scratches, and instead of running the film by its sprockets, they used flat rollers to move the film. I hope that's enough of a description to answer your questions. Otherwise, you could contact Duggal NYC directly - (212) 786-5753 .
Love it
They did it right, sounds like they used a rank type transfer.
I love these, but could do Without the music..
Wow this is so cool... I just wish there were scenes of the actual drive down (I would assume) US-1... btw, the Benjamin Franklin Bridge across the Delaware in Philadelphia was built at the time, I wonder why they didn't cross over it instead of a ferry.
I'd take a relaxing ferryboat ride rather than a bridge everytime.
It's a shame that Miami is covered in concrete and trash.... Miami should have been better protected from what it has been become presently.
Ferde Grofe 1964-65 new York world fair suit. commissioned by Robert Moses
2021.03.01
Duggal Visual Solutions, Inc. in Manhattan.
Meanwhile in Europe...
That music really sucks it just makes it less interesting. The music's so annoying I'm not even going to finish watching it
THERE ARE PLENTY OF COMPANIES OUT THERE THAT WILL TAKE YOUR FILM AND CLEAN IT UP FOR YOU AND GIMBLE IT DOWN, WHY DONT YOU FIND ONE?